I wish that we would have had software patents in the 80s. Then there would be no Microsoft. Apple and Oracle probably wouldn't exist today either. All of the technology they used to build their companies would have been patented by Xerox and we wouldnt have email, GUIs, pointing devices and many other things.
I wonder if anyone is going to realize that software patents dont work. I could tell 10 different developers to code a "desktop publishing app" and all 10 of them would come back with an app that would accomplish the goal in 10 different ways. Who do you award the patent to? The guy who finished first?
Software is an expression of ideas, like writing a novel or making a movie. Sure the ideas are structured, like math, but they are still an expression of ideas. We must protect them as such. We already have a mechanism for that, its called copyright.
Imagine what would happen if we could patent movies. A director could patent the scene "a girl in a bar sitting down" and now thousands of movies would infringe on that patent, even though the shot may be completely different. What about someone patenting "2+2". Many of you will probably think that is stupid, why would we let someone patent that, it's an idea. You would be correct, "2+2" is an idea and software is just a more complicated form of that same idea.
Right now, several incredibly creative developers are scared of releasing their own software because they have no idea whether they are infringing on patents or not. If you want to go back to the heydays of the early-mid 90s we need to get rid of software patents so that the software market can flourish again.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh...
I wish that we would have had software patents in the 80s. Then there would be no Microsoft. Apple and Oracle probably wouldn't exist today either. All of the technology they used to build their companies would have been patented by Xerox and we wouldnt have email, GUIs, pointing devices and many other things.
I wonder if anyone is going to realize that software patents dont work. I could tell 10 different developers to code a "desktop publishing app" and all 10 of them would come back with an app that would accomplish the goal in 10 different ways. Who do you award the patent to? The guy who finished first?
Software is an expression of ideas, like writing a novel or making a movie. Sure the ideas are structured, like math, but they are still an expression of ideas. We must protect them as such. We already have a mechanism for that, its called copyright.
Imagine what would happen if we could patent movies. A director could patent the scene "a girl in a bar sitting down" and now thousands of movies would infringe on that patent, even though the shot may be completely different. What about someone patenting "2+2". Many of you will probably think that is stupid, why would we let someone patent that, it's an idea. You would be correct, "2+2" is an idea and software is just a more complicated form of that same idea.
Right now, several incredibly creative developers are scared of releasing their own software because they have no idea whether they are infringing on patents or not. If you want to go back to the heydays of the early-mid 90s we need to get rid of software patents so that the software market can flourish again.
my $.02
--jake